


The waiting is the hardest part

by GhostScript



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, Joan Watson and Sherlock Holmes friendship, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Holmes/Joan Watson - Freeform, post 2x22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:44:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1575680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostScript/pseuds/GhostScript
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An idea of events to come after 2x22 Paint It Black. Emotions to be dealt with and their effects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The waiting is the hardest part

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first FanFic ever but I was so impatient for the newest episode/season finale of Elementary to air that I imagined up this version of the events to come.  
> The POV will switch occasionally.  
> * excepts from the poem The Living Lost by William Cullen Bryant (source: PoemHunter.com)
> 
> Please feel free to give me your fanfic advice! I'm hoping to do this more often.

 

 

Sherlock was racing that night, too many emotions at once swirling around his entire being. He couldn't make himself focus enough to recall the whole explanation his brother had sputtered out when he arrived with an obviously shaken Joan. Only moments before he had been yelling over the phone to Gregson, he needed help- he begged for help and then there they were, in the doorway. 

His brother and _his_ Watson.

He quickly fetched Joan her robe from upstairs and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"You're okay? There is blood on your hands and you smell like a mixture of chloroform and cheap vodka." His intense eyes darted about her.

"I'm fine. it's not- I tried to save someone… Bullet wound in the chest. The cheap vodka was the closest thing to antiseptic. He could've made it if they'd gone to the hospital but…"

It pained him to see her tremble. He was aware of the tenseness in his jaw and a copper taste in his mouth. His distain for Mycroft growing into a visible snarl increasing feverishly as he detected notes of sympathy in his tone as he further laid out the truth of his British Intelligence alter ego, and the events surrounding Le Milieu.

 _He's sympathetic to ME?_ He grimaced 

_Perhaps he should be… To his fuck up younger brother who is apparently too blind to notice something right in front of him and who isn't even capable of protecting his partner. whom he has apparently out smarted the last ten or so years._

"It was my job to keep this from you of all people Sherlock. It was important to the mission."

_How had he not known? Why didn't he realize?_

"Your mission to put my partners life in jeopardy? What if they had decided she wasn't an asset after all?! hmm?! What if one of them ducked and your goon squad assassinated Joan instead?! If I had known She'd never have been in that position!"

"You hid this?! From ME?!" He was exacerbated, as tightly wound and the wire he used on Herr Yoda. 

 

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He recalls punching Mycroft square in the nose without any warning and he remembers- relishes the sound of it breaking. 

The rest is blurry at best… 

 _Joan is mad now but she won't stay mad, she'll admire him even more now._ He _serves his country_.

He outstretched his sore hand. The skin had broken on his knuckles from the impact and were smeared with blood.

The dust settled and Mycroft gone, he attempted to shrug himself back to a resting state. Sherlock procured a pack of cigarettes from an old cigar box he kept on the mantel. He hadn't touched the pack since the first week with her he realized.

"I wish you wouldn't"

Joan stood before him and beside her sat a small overnight bag. She had hastily packed a few clothes and toiletries. 

"You should be in bed."

"I'm going to stay at a hotel" she pulled her hair back into a loose bun. He noticed she'd changed into fresh clothes. "I can't be here right now. I need time away from both Holmes'. A few days. Probably."

"Yes a few days" He agreed with a nod, unsuccessfully disguising the dismay in his voice "To reassemble yourself. I get it. Perhaps sterile surroundings will help you center yourself. Like an asylum. Take a bubble bath or whatever it is that gets your balance… Studies have shown the scent of Bergamot to be not only stress reducing but also will uplift and refresh the person during states of anxiety."

"States of anxiety" She echoed. "You should put ice on that hand."

"I was about to make some tea. Can I make you some tea?"

"My cab should be here any minute. I'll text you when I get there."

 He quietly watched her leave and waited for the yellow cab to fade into the darkness before fetching a bag of frozen peas to ease the throbbing joints.

Neither one of them had said goodbye.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Three days were like weeks themselves but Sherlock needed to be smarter and stay busy and find a way to put things back in there place. He had a plan. He'd offer to buy that espresso machine she'd been talking about, and promise to stop using her toothbrush, and then he'd convince her they needed to feel normal and work a case and Mycroft would have to go back home eventually. He could figure that out. He could trick him back to _jolly old England_. 

He could have some friends smash up the London Diogenes and that would get his fucking attention.

He reeked of nicotine and made a mental note to take a shower before Joan came home. He hadn't slept the last night and his eyeballs felt like water buoys swishing around in his skull.

He'd started a hundred texts that he never sent her and a couple he did send that were brief and benign. A photo message of the double-yolked egg he'd gotten while making breakfast. 

He could start a new experiment, add to his notes of blood splatter formation, or practice his lip reading skill but nothing fulfilled him. He could watch Clyde eat lettuce and it would be just as effective.

Everything was hollow. He could go through the motions.

What he couldn't do, and couldn't stop thinking about doing was tucked neatly away in his leather-bound collected works of Bryant. He also couldn't stop from gravitating towards it in-between distractions.

" _yet there are pangs of keener wo, of which the sufferers never speak,"_ he paced beneath the shelf where it sat, pawing the ladder _" Nor to the world's cold pity show the tears that scald the cheek, wrung from their eyelids by the shame and guilt of those they shrink to name , whom once they loved, with cheerful will, and love, through fallen and branded, still_."*

Well Bryant was a bland poet who spent entirely too much time talking about how piss poor he felt so it seemed only justified that he gut that particular book to keep a handy stash of ' _not feeling a fucking thing'_   incase of… emergencies. 

He should go to a meeting.

It didn't help that the NYPD has sought to prolong his suffering by giving him "a few days off" as well. 

" _A gloom for which ye turn your eyes._ "* He traced the spine of the volume with his fingertip.

His eyes lit up when he noticed an incoming text on his phone but audibly moaned when it was just Alfredo inviting him to a fellow N.A patron's sobriety 'birthday party.'

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A few more than a few days passed and Joan sighed heavily in preparation for the steps of the brownstone and the conversation that needed to happen, and should have happened months ago regardless of the events that had taken place. Co-dependency isn't healthy for either of them and without boundaries she often felt like she was losing herself in his neurosis. She needed to be Joan, and he needed to be comfortable being Sherlock. With time he'd understand that. 

She paid the cabbie, muttered thanks and shut the car door behind her. 

The last few messages she'd received from him were sparse. 

She turned her key and the lock clicked open like always and it surprised her. She'd had the notion that he'd change the mechanism in some kind of power play.

He would either be acting like a scorned teenager and rebel against her every word or have rescinded back to a cold distance. The fact her key still worked meant the latter.

Joan threw her coat on the back of the couch and scanned the living room. There were books stacked on the floor in front of the fireplace, some manilla file folders and police reports strewn about, some cigarette butts extinguished in a half eaten bowl of cereal. Five surveillance photos were haphazardly harpooned to the kitchen cabinets with blowgun darts. 

"Sherlock?" she called out as she continued around the kitchen. She peered close at one of the photos and squinted "Marcus called me and filled me in on the case you've started working. I want to help." 

"You mean you want to tell me that you aren't back to stay, conveniently while I am preoccupied with solving a murder."

He had creeped up on her so silently that she jumped at his voice "Sherlock what have I told you about doing that!"

"Oh I'm sorry Watson, shall I announce myself with medieval fanfare when I enter a room in my own house?" he made a snide trumpet gesture with his hands.

She scoffed "you know what I mean." It was subconscious habit for her to check him out, study his mannerisms and assess his condition. He felt the weight of her eyes and shifted uncomfortably, thrusting his hands in his jacket pockets and swaying on his heels "I'm not suicidal thanks for asking."

"You look tired. I know these days haven't been easy Sherlock. We have a lot of talking to do. But let me get a little more settled in first… This case… Marcus says there's some sort of distinguishing tattoo on one of the victims?"

"Mmm" he nodded. "The alchemy symbol for air."

As if on autopilot she retrieved two mugs from the dish drainer and the bag of coffee from the cupboard. 

"The symbol itself isn't extraordinary except…" he trailed off.

"Except what?" she asked, filling the carafe with water from the faucet.

"Except," he retorted abruptly "that you have no intention of moving back into the brownstone do you?Admit it. and you've been talking to _Fatty_. I can tell. I can't work with this nonsense looming in the air, so out with it." 

"God! If you aren't going to let this wait then yes, yes Sherlock I am moving out of the Brownstone. And you know what? I SHOULD move out of the brownstone. I am an adult and I need my own space. I need to walk around naked if I feel like it-"

"You could-"

"Don't even start with me."

He crossed his arms defensively. 

"It isn't right for you either and I know deep down inside you know that too. You will always be afraid of relapse if you stay in that moment where its MY job to keep you sober. It was my job to make you comfortable with being sober, but only you can keep you sober. Mycroft says-"

She instantly regretted saying that name. With the first uttered syllable she could feel the rumbling of a classic Holmes tantrum erupting. 

He looked her straight in the eye and frowned. "My brother" he spat "can go fuck himself." He snatched the mug from her hands and hurled it at the wall behind him, storming out the room and up the stairs. the next sound she heard was his bedroom door slamming.

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Watson was in her room, boxing up her things. She felt a jarring pang of guilt when she saw the brand new cappuccino maker left on her bed. There was a note tacked to it that read 'HOUSEWARMING' in all caps and signed '-S' underneath.

She contemplated knocking on his door and thanking him. He'd cooled down enough to play his violin. It had made her smile for the first time in a week when she heard the strings singing into the hall. As soon as she mustered the courage to open her door his swung open and a flash and then thuds as he rushed down the steps. Attempting to catch him she poked her head out of her doorway but he just yelled out  ' _MEETING!'_   without even looking back. 

Perhaps, she hoped, that he would talk about everything with his NA group; with Alfredo. They could help him work through this without hostility. 

If anything she would wait up for him and make tea and they could talk calmly when he returned. 

He always seemed more reasonable after a meeting. 

A vibrating buzz resonated from her cell phone on the nightstand so she flopped herself onto the bed to read it. It was Mycroft.

**How is it going? Did he take the news well? Let's get dinner tomorrow, if you are up for it.**

She racked her brain for the best response

**Difficult. TTYL.**

It still didn't feel totally real that he had duped them both or that she had been so naive that night at the restaurant. Sherlock would never have followed him so closely. He'd never have been found out so easily and abducted. 

It was a harsh realization that she had so much more to learn and it did scare her. She wanted to do better, to be better. She felt silly but part of her thought she'd have been chastised by Sherlock for being so stupid, but she remembered that she'd asked him to join her and he had refused. 

She wondered if he was acting out so much because he felt responsible. Even more accountable than he was holding his brother.  

Dwelling, she realized, wasn't going to solve anything. She grabbed her nearby laptop and the crime scene photos she had brought up from the kitchen table and got to work.

 

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When the front door finally opened again it was 3am. Joan wiped a bead of drool from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand and sat up on the couch. Sherlock was surprised to see her. He stumbled a bit. 

She yawned and adjusted the blanket around her "Sherlock. How was the meeting?" She knew it wasn't wise to press him about what he'd been up to or he'd just leave again. Her eyes adjusted and she double checked her watch. 

"I only stayed about five minutes actually and then I realized that the ink was the poison."

"Should I ask if you high or just give you the mouth swab?" she fought back another yawn. There is truth in every joke she thought.

"The tattoo ink" he ignored her, as usual "the murderer administered the poison through a vial of tattoo ink, a very unique kind- black light responsive."

"So the tattoo artist did it?" she played along still too tired to understand him completely.

"I very much doubt it." He said smiling ever so slightly. he kneeled closer to her and pulled his coat collar aside revealing a fresh tattoo on the side of his neck. 

"A poison bottle? Are you fucking kidding me? you got a tattoo from a suspected murderer tattoo artist of the suspected murder weapon basically. What are you thinking?!"

"Suspected sure, for a moment. But not the killer. She is, however, a very capable artist. Anyway i thought it would be funny. And it is. Have you decided you can't live with a sense of humor either?"

Joan Swatted him with a couch cushion. "Wait, She?"

"Yes. She. We had sex too since you are so curious. Anyway you are missing the point Watson. After realizing that she was in fact innocent I instantly realized who the killer was and their motives and called Gregson. Detective Bell got a confession in record time."

"I did not ask for ALL of those details." She sat up a little straighter and watched him flitter about the living room. He removed his jacket and cardigan, dropping them in a pile on the floor. The tshirt he wore was old and ratty and a little too small. She could see old brown blood stains around the sides. Allistar had shown her an old photo he kept of Sherlock. He was so skinny then. He was skeletal then. He darted to the fridge and returned with two cold root beers.

"So where are you moving?" he held out bottle moist with condensation. She took it apprehensively, his bi-polar behavior made her a little uneasy, but it was the uneasy she'd grown accustomed to. Constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. The most fascinating and draining friend she has ever had. 

"It's actually pretty close. You'd like it. But I'm not inviting you over unless you promise to quit smoking again."

He sat beside her and stared at the book case ahead of them as he spoke "Are you moving in with _HIM_?"

"What? Him who? Mycroft? NO. God you Holmes boys. I want personal space, for me. I'm not moving out to shack up with your brother. Nothing is going on between us. I have forgiven him for what happened but that doesn't mean i'm not still pissed Sherlock. He's worried about you."

Sherlock laughed "Is it supposed to make someone feel good to know that so many people believe you'll disappoint them?"

Joan furrowed her brow and studied his sullen face "No one thinks you are a disappointment. Thats not what I said."

"Do you know whats funny?" he mused "In an ideal world they'd be no crime right? Then in an ideal world there'd be no need for Sherlock Holmes."

Joan rested her head on his shoulder and they both sat in silence.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Another week passed and the case that followed wasn't a case at all really it involved Mycroft and some bloody mix up at his own bureau. Repercussions from his bust. It was mind numbingly boring. Sherlock pondered if this too was an elaborate rouse but went along with it after some pleading from Joan. She suspected Mycroft of being in real danger, which he immediately protested was absolute bullshit, but the time spent with Joan had become few and far between and he missed her presence. He'd smelled her hair when she'd looked away.

The first few mornings after she'd moved out he would forget and find himself bursting in to an empty room. He'd made too much toast. He was lonely again though he'd never admit it to her, and besides that he'd slipped back into some old ways of relieving the space between that he wasn't about to admit either. This time would be different, he promised himself. If it was choice rather than circumstance, he could better manage it. He could control it.

He fastened his belt tight around his left bicep with his teeth and flexed. 

 

' _Opportunity may only ring once but temptation leans on the doorbell_.' He had read that on a mug somewhere.

 

Sherlock slapped the crook of his elbow hard in an attempt to rise a ripe vein amidst a sea of scar tissue. 

There were a few recent track marks he could re use, but there was a higher risk of her noticing that if they became swollen or infected.

One more impatient slap and a vein was found and pierced with the tip of the needle. He held it carefully at an angle and drew the plunger back to make sure his aim was true. A thread of red blood swirled into the yellowy-brown heroin. 

"Lovely" he murmured , letting loose the belt and pushing the contents of the syringe in. It hit him fast and hard, sending his head back involuntarily. He closed his glassy eyes and arched himself back in his favorite chair. 

He felt instantly warm all over. It rushed around him and soothed ever fiber of his being. The constant barrage of 'what if' scenarios and observations and inner dialogue drifted away. His hand still gingerly gripped the hypodermic. He had to remember to cover his tracks. He knew Joan and Mycroft were on there way, but he had a little over an hour and a half and right now that felt like all the time in the world.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"Sherlock" Mycroft knocked three times against the solid wood door with purpose. He'd been knocking for a good ten minutes already and he'd tried calling but his brother was not exactly the most reliable at communication. Especially in his _moods_. 

He pulled his phone from his coat pocket again and checked the incoming texts. Joan was close by. He might as well just wait. He began to dial her number when the door to the brownstone opened and Sherlock stood before him, cigarette perched precariously between his lips. "Dear brother" he smiled sarcastically.

"Sherlock." he winced and waved the smoke from his face "You know this is a non smoking building." He said teasingly "Father would be most unnerved." Mycroft attempted to bring some brevity to the situation but Sherlock just grunted and walked back inside.

"I apologize for the disarray as I was sleeping." he pointed to a crumpled up blanket strewn across an old armchair. 

Mycroft nodded slowly "I'm sure you needed it. You never were one for the antiquated notion of bed-time." 

"Yes, well. We can't all be ship shape and Bristol fashion, can we?" Sherlock's eyes drifted slowly across the ground."So you are being framed, I take it? Probably by the real force behind Le Milieu." 

"I think they may have a mole in M.I.Five. I need you to get close and weasel them out. I am to be extradited from the U.S. tomorrow and face trial in London shortly after. Sadly it seems the cards are stacked against me. "

Sherlock flicked some ash from the cigarette uncaring to where it landed.

"I really wouldn't burden you with this Sherlock if I wasn't serious. I need you."

 "What evidence do they have?" 

"I wish I could tell you but i'm not even sure, aside from doctored photographs. I can't know much without knowing too much."

"Ah." Sherlock mused "and how is it exactly that you think the lesser Holmes brother is going to bail you out this time?" 

Mycroft felt a weight drop in his chest and sat down. _Oh brother_ he struggled to find the words he would accept, " I wish you'd forget this stupid notion that I dislike you. You are stubborn and difficult and brash but you are still brilliant and much more capable than even you allow yourself to be."

Sherlock looked at him and for the first time in a long time, Mycroft noticed, appeared vulnerable.

"I wasn't lying when I told you I've changed. I'm proud of you."

"Your'e _proud_ of me?"

"I'm proud of the work you do, with your sobriety…"

 Even he cringed with embarrassment when the words came from his mouth. He felt so awkward. Sherlock did not want to hear that. In that instance he wished to give his younger brother a hug but knew it could never happen. The only person who successfully hugged Sherlock was their mother. _Rest her soul._

Sherlock snubbed out his cigarette in the kitchen sink "I'll have to draw you a picture of us in crayon so you can mount it to your refrigerator."

 His guard was clearly back up in full force.

"Watson will be here soon." 

 


End file.
